Lansdale officials  offers in hand' for sidewalk project

LANSDALE — Winter weather this week means there’s still plenty of snow — and salt — on the ground.

But Lansdale borough officials are already looking ahead to the spring and summer construction seasons, and borough utilities director Jake Ziegler says all is still on target for work to start soon on rebuilding a route along Vine and Wood streets.

“The contractor is chomping at the bit to be able to get to work on that project,” said Ziegler.

Borough staff and consultants have been planning for years to rebuild, pave, and realign portions of Vine Street, Susquehanna Avenue, Derstine Avenue and Wood Street as part of a project to divert traffic flow away from the busy intersection of Main and Broad streets

At a recent borough town hall meeting, Ziegler said that negotiations are “still going back and forth” for right of way acquisition for three properties along the project’s planned route: with Verizon for curb cuts outside their building at Vine and Broad, with the U.S. Postal Service for similar sidewalk rights-of-way outside the post office at Vine between Montgomery Avenue and St. Elmo Street, and with Goodson Holding Company — parent company of The Reporter — for property near the corners of Vine and Derstine and Derstine and Wood.

According to Ziegler, all three have received offers from the borough and are in various stages of responding; the Reporter property required permission from a bankruptcy court in New York and the post office property requires permission from “some bureaucrat somewhere...who may need to get permission from Congress.”

None of the negotiating delays look likely to delay the planned construction timeline, according to Ziegler.

“In theory, the thought is to start construction in March or April. That’s not a guarantee because all of the rights of way are not obtained yet, but assuming that can take place, that’s the schedule,” he said.

Rebuilding and realigning the roadway would likely run into the fall, but problems with the property negotiations and weather delays could delay that schedule at any time, he said.

“Right now there’s nothing to say that can’t be (the schedule), but we also haven’t put a shovel in the ground yet,” Ziegler said.

During the townhall, he and borough parks and recreation director Carl Saldutti explained why it can appear to residents that little is happening on certain projects like PCTI and the renovation of the borough owned building at 311 W. Main St., when much of the work being done takes place behind the scenes.

On 311, Saldutti said, the borough and county have been in close contact on how to proceed with the borough’s proposed renovation of that building, and more public input will be sought at every decision point along the way.

“As long as it seems to take, and as slow as it seems to be going, the borough position is that we’re trying to do this the right way,” he said.

Council member Mary Fuller echoed those sentiments, saying one of the “biggest lessons I’ve learned over my three years on council is that nothing ever happens as fast as I would like to see it.”

“It is just the way government works, no matter how hard you try, and no matter how much you don’t want it to,” she said.

Ziegler added that while the approval process and layers of bureaucracy may seem like they cause unnecessary delays, they are meant to protect residents - and citizens are not necessarily better off without those protections, as he saw firsthand on a recent trip to China.

“I’ve actually physically seen this happen where people get zero notice. The government says ‘We’re taking your house tomorrow,’ and the next day they’re gone. There’s no thought as to where they should go, they’re just gone, and construction’s starting where their house used to be,” he said.

Borough council’s Public Works committee next meets at 7 p.m. on Feb. 6 at Borough Hall, 1 Vine St., with full council meeting at 9 p.m. For more information or meeting agendas visit www.Lansdale.org or follow @LansdalePA on Twitter.